When Wayne Garrett and I built Cloud, our interactive artwork that debuted at Nuit Blanche Calgary in 2012, we did not intend to spend the next two years thinking about the social effects of light on people while chasing Cloud around the world.

Cloud was an experiment, one that used 700 kilograms of steel, 6,000 burnt-out incandescent light bulbs and the help of friends. The audience is necessary to complete the piece, surrendering their inhibitions and unlearning the “Please Do Not Touch” policy of gallery spaces. People are necessary to complete the piece. By standing beneath the raincloud, pulling its chains, viewers activate the sculpture, causing lightning to flicker on the surface of the cloud through spontaneous collaborations.

Perhaps Calgary was unconsciously hungry for interactive art, or maybe audiences were under the influence of The Candahar, (a portable Irish pub and neighbouring installation at Nuit Blanche), but there was not a moment during Nuit Blanche when the space beneath Cloud was empty. Wayne and I spent most of the night with sweaty palms, greeting friends and trying not to panic every time the sculpture flexed beneath the movement of the crowds.

The turning point we encountered after Nuit Blanche was fast and violent. The blogosphere took hold of Cloud and, buoyed by its photogenic qualities, sent images of the sculpture all over the globe. Overnight, Cloud became what our friends facetiously termed “Internet famous.” Three months later we were in Moscow, building a second edition of the sculpture for Garage Museum of Contemporary Art.

In truth, Cloud has become her own entity, and we’re merely scrambling after her from Russia, to the Czech Republic, Israel, the Netherlands, Singapore, Portugal, and beyond. Along the way we’ve met new influences like Toby Cumberbatch, a professor at Cooper Union in New York who heads a team of young engineers developing SociaLite, a portable lamp intended to bring electric light to rural Ghana. Man-made light offers a source of clarity, a beacon of safety and evidence of civilization. But while Ghanaian people contend with complete darkness after sunset, over-lighting our cities creates different problems, confusing migrating birds and over-saturating our visual environments

Travelling with Cloud has catalyzed new understandings of light as a language, medium and way of seeings, but the real power of the piece lies in her value as an icon of hope, optimism, and collective action, epitomized by viewers standing together beneath it, staring upwards with glittering eyes and wide smiles. In Moscow, the Canadian ambassador called Cloud “a happiness machine.” A Calgary mom later told me that Nuit Blanche was the first time she’d seen her three children, each affected by severe Asperger’s syndrome, gladly interacting with strangers.

Within professional art circles, interactive art is sometimes criticized for being too appealing and accessible, and so caught up in notions of entertainment that it neglects the meat of a concept. This can be the case, but interactive work also provides a real-world, interpersonal connection, building relationships and consequences that touch people deeply because they are permitted to touch it. Through these interactions, Cloud can be seen as an international gauge of cultural similarities and differences. Inevitably, this conversation becomes political: by working together (or not working together) what do people reveal about themselves as a group? How does temporary public art affect the social dynamic of spaces?

In Jerusalem, we were generously welcomed into a tight-knit community while we installed Cloud onsite. We shared a small public plaza near the Tower of David, with a tailor, a mosque, and a variety of neighbourhood kids. (We found out later that they kept visiting because we’d taken over their soccer field.) A majority of locals were kind and encouraging, offering us cardamom coffee and conversation, glad to have another reason for tourists to visit their shops on the quiet street. But one shopkeeper in particular was incensed by the sculpture, calling it a “scratch on the face of the city,” and threatening to smash it with stones. It quickly became evident that he viewed Cloud as a symbol of occupation. It had never even occurred to us that this type of complex traditionalism might exist. Now we know better; this is the nature of public space in historic places.

During our two months in Moscow, we encountered a completely different cultural environment. We arrived in the dead of winter, at the pinnacle of the Free Pussy Riot movement, and spent our first several weeks feeling disoriented, cold and lonely. Who knew that it is considered suspicious to smile on the Moscow metro, while staring intensely at strangers is entirely appropriate?

Cloud was presented indoors, and tickets to the exhibition were expensive—almost $30. Because the disparity of wealth in Russia is huge and most people don’t earn a lot, this created an air of exclusivity that made us yearn for free, outdoor, public-art spaces. On the upside, the exhibition was excellent, showcasing a variety of interactive installations from brilliant artists, including Karina Smigla-Bobinski, Jason Hackenwerth, and Bompas & Parr. Thanks to the smallness of the art world, we eventually met a community of local people, staying everywhere from a crumbling Soviet-era apartment block, to the palatial Indian Embassy formerly owned by the Smirnoff family. We left Russia with a new understanding of Eastern Europe and a renewed love for shared spaces.

Getting Cloud out of Russia was an ordeal, requiring complicated customs paperwork and palm-greasing. In contrast to Moscow, the next exhibition site was an outdoor (and free!) installation space along the banks of the Vltava River in Prague, complete with a spirited crowd of Pilsner-lubricated Czechs. A few months ago, we returned to build our third and final Cloud in Prague, where we hope it can stay forever.

In different places, the sculpture has been celebrated, embraced, cursed and enthusiastically abused, but she has also opened doors and windows into the unconscious minds of cities. As Calgary’s second Nuit Blanche draws near (Sept. 20, 7 p.m. to 1 a.m.), we turn our thoughts to the value of temporary public art and its effect on urban spaces. Nuit Blanche is not just about showcasing contemporary public artworks; it’s also about unifying a critical mass of people using art as a catalyst for a renewed vision of the world. By transforming places for short periods of time, public art incites playful reimagination of communal spaces, challenging their function and exciting potential for ongoing change and regrowth.

For Wayne a nd me, Nuit Blanche was our slingshot, and we feel huge gratitude to the festival for catapulting us and Cloud into the stratosphere. As we transition towards new projects, we reflect not just on light, interactivity, and alternative art spaces, but on Calgary as a platform for fresh perspectives, curiosity, and hope.

After sunset, anything can happen.

You can read more about the adventures of Caitlind and Wayne at incandescentcloud.com.

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